Palit Radeon HD 4870 512MB Sonic Dual Edition Video Card Review

The Palit HD 4870 Sonic Heatsink

Once the heatsink shroud is removed we are able to get a bit closer look at the inner workings of Palit’s seemingly impressive cooler design. There are three large 6mm independent heatpipes to pull heat away from the core to be dispersed on the numerous aluminium cooling fins. Overall, this heatsink looks well suited for providing adequate cooling to the overclocked R770 core.


Since this is a low-slung heatsink, Palit didn’t have the place to install any additional cooling on the memory modules but considering the amount of air movement from the two fans, we would say that the ICs are well cooled nonetheless. Also, the VRMs for the 4-phase power distribution are covered by a black aluminium heatsink.


Now we have finally come to the part of this review where the first major issue with this card rears its ugly head. Tell me, what is wrong with the pictures above other that the fact we have two fans of different sizes? Those eagle-eyed readers among you have already picked it up: only ONE of the two fans is temperature controlled. As you can see, the larger 80mm fan has the trademark four wires while the smaller 70mm is left to fend with 2 wires meaning it has two settings: off and full speed ahead. Does this design make for a louder than necessary experience? We will find out in the Heat & Acoustics section.